In his feature film debut “Being Mitsuko” which had its world premiere on October 13 at the Warsaw Film Festival, Japanese director Kenji Yamauchi walks a fine genre line between the comic and the tragic. And it works. Imbued with a strong dose of black humor and absurdist elements, Yamauchi has crafted an intricate narrative that revolves around the lives of Mitsuko and Emi Shinozaki, two 20-something sisters living in their family house in suburban Tokyo.  But there is hardly...

Walking around New York, London or Paris, if you offered someone 100 dollars, pounds or euros to name just one Bulgarian film or director, you'd likely still have the money in your pocket after an hour of trying. Of course, this fact has nothing to do with a lack of productivity or talent in contemporary Bulgarian cinema.And with “Avé”, the feature film debut by director Konstantin Bojanov, Bulgarian cinema's profile is likely to be raised higher, as audiences discover a deeply personal and...

On January 15, the 27th Warsaw Film Festival, which will take place October 7-16, 2011, starts accepting submissions for this year's edition. The festival operates since 1985 and belongs to the elite group of 13 most important competitive international film festivals in the world. Cash awards amount to over 40,000 Euro. In the International Competition, the priority is given to world, international and European premieres. The films in the WFF's program must be absolute Polish premieres. The...

The 26th Warsaw Film Festival ended on Sunday, 17 October 2010. “I feel great satisfaction after this year’s festival. Our programme included about twenty European and international premieres. More than a hundred filmmakers from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas visited us to present their films in person in Warsaw. We had waited for some of them for years, to mention Jan Sverak, double Oscar winner, or Alexei Uchitel, whose new film The Edge is Russia’s Oscar candidat...

The 26th Warsaw Film Festival ended on Sunday, 17 October 2010.“I feel great satisfaction after this year’s festival. Our programme included about twenty European and international premieres. More than a hundred filmmakers from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas visited us to present their films in person in Warsaw. We had waited for some of them for years, to mention Jan Sverak, double Oscar winner, or Alexei Uchitel, whose new film The Edge is Russia’s Oscar candidate this...

 Kung-Fu Magyar?A comedy. A story of friendship and rivalry. A kung-fu film without a fight. Huh? Confused? You won't be after listening to Bence Miklauzic, talking about his new film, Children of the Green Dragon, one of the most popular films this week among audiences at the Warsaw Film Festival.Hungarian film director Bence Miklauzic is forty years old. And his second feature film, Children of the Green Dragon, had its European debut this week at the Warsaw Film Festival. Just back from the ...

The 26th Warsaw Film Festival runs from Friday, October 8 till Sunday, October 17, 2010.Robert Bodrog our Warsaw correspondant interviews Antonia Bird (award-winning British film director and BAFTA member), Francois da Silva (producer)and Mike Downey (producer and EFA board member), members of the jury for the 2010 Warsaw Film Festival's international competition, about the state of eastern European cinema, story telling and how filmmakers can reach a global audience. Antonia Bird, RB: Ms. Bird,...

 Tell Your Own StoriesRobert Bodrog interviews Antonia Bird, Francois da Silva and Mike Downey, members of the jury for the 2010 Warsaw Film Festival's international competition, about the state of eastern European cinema, story telling and how filmmakers can reach a global audience.RB: Ms. Bird, how did you come to be the chairperson of the jury this year? Do you have a connection to Warsaw?Antonia Bird: I can only guess. I was at the Sundance Filmmaker labs in Utah. You know, Robert Redford's...

Warsaw Film Foundation and FIPRESCI invite young film critics to Warsaw. Five years ago the Warsaw Film Foundation and the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI, began organizing workshops for young film critics from Central and Eastern Europe. Since then, we invite to our project journalists who are at the beginning of their career, but have already been writing about film. This year, like previously, they will have a unique opportunity to participate in the Warsaw International ...

 Monday, June 16------EMPTIES, the ironic comedy by Czech director Jan Sverak, has won the Gold Dolphin, the top award at the 24th edition of Festroia in Portugal. The film, a comic love story about a man facing old age, is the third in a trilogy that includes the director’s previous films ELEMENTARY SCHOOL and the Oscar winning KOLYA. The film has previously won the Czech Lion (the local Oscar) for Best Director and Audience Prize, as well as the Audience Award at last year’s Karlovy Vary ...

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The 19th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival came to a successful close on Sunday, January 13, 2008 and announced this year's award winners at a luncheon at Spencer's Restaurant. The Festival, which ran from January 3-14, 2008, screened 212 films from 66 countries, including 65 premieres and 55 of the 63 foreign entries for this year's Academy Awards. Palm Springs' increasingly popular Festival continues to expand its diverse programming of quality independent and foreign films, se...

The 19th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival has announced a roster of 222 films, culled from more than 66 countries for the 2008 Festival. The selection of films for screening includes a total of 69 premieres (4 World, 40 U.S. and 25 North American). Also, 55 of the 63 films submitted for consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Academy Awards will be screened at this year’s Festival, held from January 3-14, 2008. (For a complete list of this year’s fi...

NESCAFE is kind of a magic word in Poland where all during the gray Communist daze it meant "Real coffee from the West" at a time when anything from The West was labeled as "decadent" by the nauseating Red Regime. Since the "regime changes" of 1989 the Swiss Company has established itself bigtime in Poland with all kinds of other consumer items, not just coffee, and is now raising its corporate profile to new heights by sponsoring the Warsaw Film Festival, a festival that has been coming on lik...

TRICKS by Andrzej Jakimowski, awarded at Venice today, will open the 23rd Warsaw International Film Festival on Friday, October 12.TRICKS got two awards: the Europa Cinemas Label, given by a Jury of European exhibitors, and Laterna Magica Award. The Europa Cinemas network, supported by MEDIA Plus Programme of the European Union, includes 479 cinemas in 29 countries. The award has a concrete dimention - Europa Cinemas created a mechanism to encourage its members to screen the awarded film. The Ju...

Chaim Pevner, Film CriticFILM NOTES TO THE BARBICAN YIDDISH FILM RETROSPECTIVE(London, October 12-24, 1996) THE YIDDISH language cinema is nearly unique among world cinema cultures in that it had no specific homeland.  Yiddish films, including “silent Yiddish” films, were produced wherever there were major Yiddish speech communities and a Yiddish theatrical circuit  from which  talent could be recruited.  The majority of Yiddish language films were therefore made in New York or in P...

The Best Director PrizeThe Silver St George to the 26th MIFF Best Director was handed by Boris Akunin, an author, a member of the Grand Jury. And it went to Dmintry Meskhiyev, Russia, who managed to make the viewer feel ” the time shrink, pulsate and practically melt” when watching his film “Us”. Silver St George Special Jury PrizeSpecial Silver St George winner was announced by Armen Medvedev, member of the Grand Jury, producer, film historian. The Prize for a film that could “show t...